


tangible intangible

by randomhorse



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Abusive Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PTSD, Recovery, but also the comfort part (i tried), pain and suffering in general, rated m for implied history of non-con/underage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 18:42:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8633875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomhorse/pseuds/randomhorse
Summary: “Credence,” Newt says. “Graves is gone. He can't touch you here.”“What if I still want him to?” Credence asks.





	

 

 

When Credence wakes up in pitch black darkness the air around him is so ripe with magic his body convulses and he feels the definition of his fingers slip away. Magic whispers around him, breathes, and his physical outlines fade. It always starts with the fingers. He balls his hands to fists, presses them to his belly, curls his body around them to keep the blackness from escaping. His stomach clenches.

“Credence,” a voice says. “May I call you Credence?”

Credence recognizes it. He can't see him, but he knows it belongs to the strange man who fought him in the tunnel. Who pulled a spell out of his wand that bound him, burned every single fiber of Credence's being surrounding him with it, and then put him to rest in this dark room. Credence blinks. His body is solid now. He senses faint light from up above. Starlight.

“You're the one who killed Graves,” Credence says. His voice comes out broken and dissonant. His entire body aches.

“Nobody killed Graves last night,” the man says, his voice gentle.

“But he is dead,” Credence says. His mouth is dry. He's not sure if it is hope or dread he feels, it all coils together so tight in the pit of his stomach, too much mass taking up too little room. He presses his fists into it tighter, hopes that maybe the pain will ease the tension.

“He can't get to you here,” is what the man says, which is not a response either way.

Credence can see the outline of him drawn into the darkness by silver starlight catching in his hair, on his clothes. He's wearing no coat, only a shirt, and has the sleeves rolled up as if it wasn't cold. It isn't cold, Credence realizes. He's been sleeping on soil, heavy and dark, but warm as if the sun had sated it during the day.

“Where am I?” Credence asks.

“Right now we have booked passage to the old world,” the man says. “But tomorrow, who knows?” There's a little smile around his mouth Credence can't quite place. It's not teasing, nor is it pity. The man takes a cautious step closer. Credence can see him clearly now, his wild hair and his wide eyes. For all the smile confuses him, he likes the look in those eyes. There is a strange mixture of fear and admiration in them he hasn't quite seen in anyone else before. It adds up to respect.

“You can leave if you want, Credence, I'm not holding you prisoner.” The man holds out his empty palms. He is vulnerable like that, the skin on his inner arms very white. “You are very powerful,” the man says. “Please, if you want to leave, don't test the boundaries of this place. It's fragile, and we can't risk breaking it.” The man nods to himself, as if he agreed with what he just said.

Credence echoes the nod with a jerk of his head. It seems to appease the man. He drops his hands.

“And if you stay,” the man adds, “please don't hurt anyone. Nothing in here will harm you.”

Credence's eyes widen. “In here?”

“This is their sanctuary,” the man says. “No creature is hostile by nature. I feed them, so they won't have to feed on each other. They have no reason to cause you harm.”

It is only then that Credence understands: the hum he took for magic all around him is the sound of creatures breathing in their sleep, some of them fast and high-pitched like clockwork, some of them deeper and slower than waves on the shore. He looks around, tries to train his eyes to the darkness to make out some of them, but fails. The sky is growing progressively lighter, but the edges of the room are still hidden in deep shadow. There is no telling how many there are, and what powers they hold. Credence only knows one thing: This is a lion's den, and the man is their handler.

“Am I one of yours now?” Credence asks, and the man shakes his head instantly, as if he couldn't allow the thought to attach, shrugging it off his shoulders like raindrops from an umbrella.

“This is just a shelter for those who need it,” the man says. “It can be yours, too, if you want.”

 

___

 

Like any strange new creature, Newt studies Credence from afar at first, pushes the tin bowl of soup halfway across the distance between them, and expects Credence to take it the rest of the way. Credence eats like a starved child, with no regard to appearances.

They go ashore in Liverpool before Newt realizes Credence is even older than he assumed, well beyond the boy. His frame is bigger than he makes it look, his too-small jacket barely spans the width of his shoulders, the stitches tearing where the sleeves attach. Where the sleeves end they reveal too long a stretch of pale wrists.

Every night Newt shortens the distance between them. Two steps melt down into one, become only the length of an arm from where Newt holds his own meal in his lap. Credence has made his home between the shelves in the shed, almost hidden from view. When Newt comes down with food, they sit on the wooden floor across from each other, cross-legged.

Finally one night, when Newt pushes the food towards Credence, Credence catches Newt's wrist before he can withdraw. Their eyes lock instantly, but there is no threat in Credence's. Instead there is a question.

Against his instinct – he avoids this usually with beasts and human beings alike – Newt holds his gaze.

“Tell me about it,” Credence says. He isn't used to asking for favors, Newt can tell. His gaze slips to the ground, his shoulders harden, and his hand on Newt's wrist is cold.

“What do you want to know?” Newt asks. He can tell a myriad of creatures right off the tip of his tongue, their habits and habitats, their mating, their feeding, their dangers, their deaths. Everything beyond feels rusty and possibly dangerous.

“Everything,” Credence says.

So Newt starts with the beasts.

___

 

Credence starts helping with the feeding, and Newt starts talking about Hogwarts. He'll get lost trying to describe the structure of an Occamy's scale, but Credence steers him gently back, and in the space between them Newt's words unfold a new world, the green hills surrounding the castle, the lake, its towers. The bristling of the people living in it Newt remembers more keenly than the touch of magic.

Credence rarely asks, and when he does, it's specifics: the color of Newt's first owl, the taste of butterbeer, the feeling of walking down to class across the dew-covered grass.

It is late at night when Newt starts talking of Leta. His voice is worn thin from speaking all day, and at some point along the way he has stopped weighing his words, they just come pouring.

The truth is that if he is ever homesick, it is Hogwarts, and Leta, and the time they spent there together. His roots are cut, but he hasn't forgotten where they lie.

“Can we go there?” Credence asks.

Newt stops. Somewhere along the way he forgot about Credence's presence, forgot that he wasn't just talking to himself, or to one of his animals.

Credence sits on his striped mattress between the shelves, his knees pulled to his chest, a blanket around his shoulders, wide awake. He lifts his head from where it rests on his knees. “Please,” he says. “Please let us go there.”

Newt shakes his head. “I'm not sure that would be a good idea,” he says. “Not for me.”

Credence nods, and hugs his knees tighter to his body.

“But you,” Newt says, when he sees the disappointment in Credence's eyes, “you I'm sure we could send for a visit.”

The glow on Credence's face is a harsh reminder: this is not one of Newt's beasts, this is a hurt boy, and while the responsibility may be the same, the methods are not. Newt extends an arm towards Credence, his palm spread invitingly, and Credence leans into it, rests his head in Newt's lap to go to sleep.

 

___

 

Credence wakes up at night screaming Graves' name.

“Credence,” Newt says, Credence's shaking body crowded against his own. Credence has his shoulder wedged into Newt's abdomen, his head buried at Newt's side. “Graves is gone. He can't touch you here.”

Credence twists himself against Newt. There is agony in the way his legs kick against the mattress, seeking more purchase. Credence's hands grab fistfuls of Newt's shirt in his back.

“What if I still want him to?” Credence asks, his voice hollow from crying.

This is the part Newt knows. Carefully, he lets his hands sink, allows his palms to rest on Credence's shaking back.

“You lost someone you thought was your friend,” Newt says carefully, when he notices Credence slowly stilling. “It hurts like nothing in the world.”

Credence draws a shaky breath. “I love him.”

“I know,” Newt says.

“And he hurt me, he _sold_ me.” Credence starts shaking again. Newt can feel his fists clench against his back, and then they soften, losing their definition. “He sold me, he _made_ me,” Credence says, his voice tearing. “He knew it, and he didn't help me.”

“I know, I know,” Newt whispers, and rests his cheek on Credence's back.

Credence's body starts convulsing against him, his skin breaking.

“Let it go,” Newt says, and still holds him when Credence's darkness engulfs him.

 

___

 

When he sees Graves for the first time, his magic surrounds him like a maze of splintered, sharp-edged mirrors. Credence can smell it on him like static. It's like the crowd can feel it, too, parting around him like a swarm around a predator. Credence watches him approach, wide-eyed, paralyzed, until their paths collide and Credence falls to the ground hard.

Graves turns around, Credence can see the apology already on his lips. _'_ _Scuse me, Sir, I'm so sorry, Ma'am_. Instead, when he finds the air in front of him empty, his gaze drops to the ground, where Credence cowers, trying to gather the leaflets he spilled all over the muddy pavement. Graves' face hardens.

“Get up, boy,” Graves says, grabs his shoulders and pulls Credence to his knees. When Credence gets up, clumsily, his knees and hands aching, he stands almost as tall as Graves. He ducks his head, expects the scold, but then, unexpectedly, something in the way Graves looks at him softens.

“You're with the Salemers,” Graves says, and there is a tone of surprise in his voice Credence can't quite place. Of course he is with the Salemers. He wears it like his second skin: the haircut, the orphanage's hand-me-downs, the bad breath, the damp leaflets clutched to his chest.

“Yes, sir,” Credence says, pointlessly, because he has been taught.

Graves doesn't takes his eyes off him, regards him fully, and something akin to a smile settles around his mouth. “Marvelous,” he says. And he looks at Credence like that, _marvels_ at him, as if he could see right past the ratty clothes, the pale skin stretched too tight over bone, the dirt on his palms and knees.

“You've been with them for a long time, haven't you,” Graves says.

“Since I can remember, Sir,” Credence responds. He doesn't dare to look Graves in the eye, stares on his own dirty hands pressing the leaflets to his chest instead.

The crowd around them disperses, the air of an imminent humiliation is gone. People scurry past them, not wasting a second look on their odd pair in the middle of the street. From the outside, Credence thinks, they must look ordinary. A gentleman's kindness to an orphaned child. There is not a speck of mud on Graves' immaculate suit and coat.

Suddenly, Graves is close, close enough for his breath to disturb the air cold on Credence's cheek. “I want to show you something, boy,” Graves whispers, and grasps Credence's upper arm tight.

Credence yelps. He feels like his skin has been cut where Graves' fingers press into his flesh. Pain whips through his veins like a barbed lash when Graves travels with him, and it leaves him raw inside, slumped against the wet brick wall of the back-alley Graves brought them to.

Ma has taught them about witches' abilities to appear and disappear at will, she didn't tell him about the pain, scorching like fire, boiling in the pit of Credence's stomach. It's something she doesn't know about magic: the agony it is born from.

“What do you want from me?” Credence asks, his back pressed against the wall.

Graves turns around. He looks completely undisturbed by their travel. Now, when Graves looks at him, there is pity in his eyes.

“You're a beautiful boy,” Graves says. “Tears don't suit you.”

Credence bites down hard on the insides of his cheeks and uses his palm to wipe the tears off his face, rubs blood on his face and dirt into his wounds with it. It stings. Graves catches his hand in the motion.

“You're hurt,” he says.

“I fell,” Credence says, and this time, he dares to look at Graves.

“Let me,” Graves says. Graves takes his hand gently into his own, holds it with one and covers it with the other. His healing magic feels like the whip of a belt all over. Credence gasps, it brings fresh tears to his eyes.

“Shh,” Graves says. When he takes his hands away, Credence's skin beneath the dirt is new and smooth, with no scars to show for his injury.

“It scares you,” Graves says, regarding him like a curiosity, his head cocked to the side.

Credence shakes his head, determinedly.

“Then what?” Graves asks. “You're shaking.”

Credence presses his lips together. “I am not scared,” he says, but when Graves raises his hand and places it gently on the side of Credence's neck, Credence jolts back.

Graves melts the darkness inside of him, he lures it to the surface until it runs right under Credence's skin. Where Graves' hand rests, his skin feels paper-thin, translucent. Credence is sure Graves can feel magic surging underneath it like an electric current.

Credence can feel Graves', too, running through his fingertips and piercing his skin. Credence lets his head roll into Graves' caress, leans into the sweet, bristling pain that comes with it. “I'm not scared,” he says, and this time he means it.

Graves laughs quietly. There is genuine amusement in his eyes.

“Very well, boy,” he says. “Then you'll do me a favor out of kindness.”

 

___

 

“I hurt you,” Credence says.

Newt shakes his head. He puts his suitcase down on the wet sand and pushes his sleeves up, lets Credence see his scarred arms. “They're old, see,” he says. “Occupational hazard.”

Credence looks at him, assessing. The wind tears at their clothes, washing the salty spray of the ocean in from where the waves break on the flat, broad beach. It is a pale, milky morning. Apart from the seagulls sweeping above they are completely alone.

“You were soft,” Newt says. “Docile.”

“I didn't know it'd be like that,” Credence says. “I could've killed you.”

Newt shakes his head. “It wasn't directed towards me. Something inside of you does that, it steers it.”

He waves Credence over, and pulls his wand from the back of his belt.

“You're ready to control it,” Newt says.

Credence just looks at him.

“Try it,” Newt says, holding the wand out to Credence.

“But that's yours,” Credence says. “It won't work.”

“We'll see about that,” Newt says.

Reluctantly, Credence takes the wand from Newt's hand, carefully as if it was both fragile and explosive.

“Hold it,” Newt says.

Credence closes his hand around the wand's end, his brows furrowed in concentration, and holds it with an outstretched arm. His whole posture is frozen with terror. Newt steps behind him, coaxes Credence's feet apart with his own.

“Set your stance,” he says. He puts his hands on Credence's shoulders, easing the tension beneath.

“Relax,” he says. “Breathe.”

Newt's breath disturbs the air against Credence's skin, and his magic bristles through his fingertips and through the fabric of Credence's jacket, but where Graves' magic was piercing, painful, Newt's is soothing.

Newt extends his arm along Credence's, lines them up, and closes his hand around Credence's fist holding the wand. Credence feels it now, the magic flowing through him and out, and finding release through the tip of the wand. It swells and glows inside of him, and what felt like agony before is suddenly something else: power. A shower of pink sparks, pale in the bright morning light, erupts from the wand.

“Very good,” Newt says, and Credence turns towards him, smiling so wide it hurts his cheeks.

“Was that me?” Credence asks.

Newt squeezes his shoulder and steps away, watches from the distance. Credence makes an odd silhouette against the white morning sky, a gangling, slender figure, slowly growing and stretching in its confinements. When Credence next swings the wand, he stands tall and straight, his feet dug firmly into the wet sand below, and when a rain of sparks shoots from the tip of his wand, he yells a laugh against the sea, loud enough to carry over the sound of waves and seagulls.

 

___

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> this could've been longer but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> come talk to me about percival graves' coat over on [tumblr](http://tiny-steve.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
